FIELD OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates to machines for harvesting cotton and, in particular, to a novel structure for pulling the mature cotton plant from the stalk or burr.
More particularly, this invention relates to a machine for harvesting cotton which includes a novel paired disk picking mechanism mounted for rotation about a central shaft in which the individual disks of the disk pair are separated to allow a portion of the cotton plant to pass therebetween and which are brought to a closed position to squeeze or pull the mature cotton from the stalk of the plant.
The most widely used mechanical harvesting machine for cotton is the spindle picker in which the mature cotton is collected on a plurality of pins positioned around the rotating spindle arms. Although other machines, characterized as strippers, are used to harvest cotton, such machines gather too much extraneous portions of the cotton plant to obtain the high quality harvest the cotton mills demand. The spindle picker has undergone only minor improvements in design since its widespread introduction in the late 1940's, and although the picking efficiency is very satisfactory, the large mass of individual components in every row unit or header of this type of cotton harvesting machine is disadvantageous for several reasons.
The large amount of components consequently demands a large amount of time for daily maintenance, such as for lubrication, and seasonal attention to replace worn parts which comprise a large portion of the operation cost of the spindle picker. The weight of the individual headers which contain all the picking machinery is another serious disadvantage since the number of headers that can be mounted on a harvesting machine is severely limited. Only by removing some of the component parts to reduce weight and thereby sacrifice picking efficiency can this disadvantage be somewhat overcome.
Accordingly, a need exists for a cotton harvesting machine which eliminates the problems associated with the conventionally used spindle picking machines. Thus, in accordance with the present invention, such problems are eliminated by utilizing a novel method of picking the mature cotton from the stalk in which less machinery is required, thereby reducing daily and seasonal servicing of the cotton harvesting machine and reducing the respective labor and machinery cost. Another advantage of the novel picking device of the present invention is the drastically reduced weight per header, allowing more headers to be mounted on each harvesting machine and thereby allowing a single machine to cover more acreage at greater speed than present machines, cutting both labor and fuel costs.